MISCELLANEOUS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 246, 17 October 1872, Page 8

MISCELLANEOUS.

The "Land Sharks" at the Land Office. — The Melbourne Age marks that since Mr. Casey took office as Minister of Lands, he has been a terror to dummies and persons wishing to take up land for purposes not bonafide, and very few of this class now venture to appear before him. to prefer their applications. The hon. gentleman is now abont to make a raid against another class — viz . , the land agents, or, as they are generally called, "hind sharks." On Tuesday he, in the boardroom of the Lands Office, publicly announced that he is about to make regulations by which agents will in future be prohibited f rom appearing in any cases that may come before him, observing that it would be better in every way for the principals to be present themselves, and that it had been brought under his notice that instances had occured in which agents had given evasive replies to their clients when asked how their cases were progressing, and had charged the department with delay when none existed, simply for the purpose of extorting money out of their victims.

The "Pleasant Creek News," referring to the month's postponement of the Mining on Private Property Bill, by the Legislative Council, remarks : — •'The reasons alleged in defence of tho delay are of the most flimsy and untruthful character. Although the mea^ sure has been criticised and discussed in the columns of every country newspaper for the last three months, and has received nearly unanimous support from the goldfields Press, one hon. member says In the house that time is wanted, as hardly a paper in the colony has expressed an opinion on its merits. This of course is the most palpable of mis-statements, but it is only one of many samples that could be cited of the ignorance. of facts passing around them that is so constantly a painful characteristic of members of the Legislative Council. The mining interest has been languishing year after year principally for want of an equitable measure to enable miners to extract gold from land alienated from the Crown in which tho alienation of the precious metals was never included, and yet our Upper House turns a deaf or unwilling ear when the wants of the mining community are laid before them in the practical shape of a bill to enable mining to be proceeded with.

"Atticus" in the Melbourna "Leader " says : — " The north of Queensland and Port Darwin are this year the two great centres of attraction. No one knows anything of their richness — upon the principle omne ignotum pro magnlftco, that is rather in their favour — but their climate is a matter upon which exact information .is easily obtainable. Both places are far inside the tropics, and the probability of Europeans being able- to labor atj them is very remote. To any person • who is thinking of' going" I would proffer tho advice that " Punch " gave to persons about to marry — ■" Don't ;" and would add — but if you will go take plenty of quinine with you, and make your will before you start. The prospect of your coming back again is rather remote. The road steamer, designated Mr Grillies's " white elephant," is not much appreciated in Auckland, if we are to believe the following : — "Here it comes crawling along at a snail's pace, children screaming, horses shying, in all directions^ The hideous useless thing whilst making a pretence of earning its salt, belches forth suffocating volumes of smut clouds, which roll over "the harbour, arid tinge its blue waves with -myriad bldck specks. ' Phew, the intolfera/fole nuisance is here?- down -with the windows!" -v ~ " -0* i

Th« /MJelbdurnei V AEgtos,? Ydf 4 recent date x says-: — i( Members of Parliament. /Btiefaatr last to be awa^eni|lg 'to the .importances of the../3?<ouj£tb. Estate. The •Press. is beiqg^se^r.gly patronised.- Last^nighV 'K W. U. Smith gave notice that he would ask the Chief Secretary whether-ho-WOuld make enquiries with a view > that all post, telegraph, and other public notices which the Press has hitnerto courteously printed without payment, shall for the future be paid for, as Government advertisements at current rates, and that provision be mi,!? oh the additional estimates for 1872"-73 for this purpose ; and later in' tha evening the Chief Secretary told Mr,. W. Clarke that the Government were taking into, consideration the propriety of subsidising direct telegraphic communication with India and the East."

A writer in the " Southern Cross j' relates the following coachraan'syarD : — " I was driven as far as Ded >•. ood by one of the most intelligent and interesting coachmen I have ever fallen in with in my travels. He is a Canadian by birth, and gave me the history of the last twenty years of his -life in something under fiftesp minuter. "He waa years ago one of Cobb's celebrated line of American drivers, running between Melbourne and Ballarat. H^. told me how once when going doyvcr to Fyan's Ford Hill, which is as a stockade wall, having six horses in hand, the break gave way, and tho coach went down the road at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He hud a lady with him on the box seat with a child in her arms. He told her to feel quite comfortable, and was cheering her, when he ' seed the darned fool of a turnpike man ' down in the distance shutting the gates, instead of throtving them wide open. Then, thinking it was all up with everyone, he told the lady to chuck the child on to the sapling hedge and say the shortest prayer she could think of. The next minute he saw his two leaders' leap the gate;- then the pole struck and shivered it into splinters. The coach got through, and the horses pulled up as soon as they met the hill. The lady stuck to the child, but had a good cry, with a pint of ale at the next halt ; ' and,' continued Jehu, ' that darned turnpike-keeper was-a-going to summons me for smashing his gate, only he couldn't scrape enough of the pieces together which would let him swear to its identity.' "

The " Tiniaru Herald " in a paragraph headed " The end of all things," says : — To morrow there will be placed under the auctioneer's hammer the first house ever erected in Timaru, the one in days gone by — some twenty years — the Messrs Rhode's homestead, then a thriving public house, and latterly a lodging house. The comparatively old building has seen many changes in Timaru, and now, stock, lock and barrel, it is to be sold, in auctioneer's parlance, " for what it will fetch."

Continuing his career as a Bank reformer, Sir John Lubbock is about to make an innovation in our paper currency, which will be highly appreciated by all classes of the commercial community. He has brought ia a bill to legalise the crossing of bank note% after the manner of cheques. It will enable large bank notes to be setjfc freely by the post, though it must be observed that such bank notes not being legal tender (the Act provides that they shall cease to be legal tender for ordinary purposes as soon as they are crossed), they will not be availablo in the settlement of purchases of land — in which case it is thought essential only to part with the title to the land oh the receipt of the purchase-money, in real legal tender. In all other cases the protection given by the " crossing " will be puito sufficient, and be very useful. In answer to the objections urged against the measure, some of which are too fantastic to need notice, it may be said that it is purely permissive, and all who choose may refuse the crossed notes, to that a trial of the experiment will inconvenience nobody.

A case of extraordinary rescue from drowning, appears in the London papers :—": — " Mr Henry Emanuel, of Surbiton, observed a man who was bathing sink. Mr Emanuel immediately jumped in with his clothes on, and dived after the man, who clung to him with such tenacity that -both were in danger of being lost.- Mr Emanuel, however, ultimately succeeded _. in bringing 'the man to shore, when to his surprise, he discovered that instead of one man he had rescued £ wo, who. had clung together when drowning. They proved. to be a footman and coachmaa of a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who had got of their depth, and but for~Mr EnianueroimelyaiStherercaa be no doubt that both men would have

perished.

In addressing a deputation which waited upon him last moftfcb-,— -Mft Langton, Postmaster-General of Victoria, said that the present newspaper postage entailed a loss of £1500 pc? annum to the Government.

On the 6th July a gentleman was giving a favorite Newfoundland dog a baths in the Thames, by the steps close to St. Thomas's Hospital, when a-cbild seven or eight years of age fell into the water, and was carried away. \ by the ebbing tide. By the time it had passed nearly through the arch of" the Widgfe the. dog. bad swum to.- the j«btl^ and grasping .its, clothes^ held itjintil one of the boatmen rowbd^to'the'sgot and res. cuedr-itr- I'-*1 '-*